Haley Stevens: “I am glad the Senator asked that question of me. If you want to look at what happened, Secretary Hodel approved in 1988…”

“I am glad the Senator asked that question of me. If you want to look at what happened, Secretary Hodel approved in 1988 a series of proposals that came to him from the Bureau of Land Management, the Park Service, and the Fish and Wildlife Service within his Department. He did not write that. He approved the work of a series of bureaus in his Department. It was not what this Secretary is doing. This Secretary is coming along as the Secretary and issuing an edict to change all of that. This, in 1988, was the work of long-term public servants who had great experience in managing. As a matter of fact, if you want to look at the 1993 report to Congress on R.S. 2477 by the Department of the Interior--I have it right here--you will see that there was consultation with the Governors, there was consultation with the State directors in Utah and Alaska, the areas where there was a substantial amount of R.S. 2477 claims. One of the things that I might add to this, my friend, is our Governor, who is a member of the party of the Senator from Arkansas, sent word to the current Secretary of the Interior that he was disturbed because he was not consulted before this was done.”